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5 Reasons Making Art Boosts Children’s Brainpower

art boosts children's brainpower


Did you know that making art boosts children’s brainpower? You can help boost brainpower by supporting art activities at home or in the classroom. It’s true, and it’s supported by new science! There’s a lot of neural wiring happening in the brain when children make art. Other branches of scientists, like neuroscientists, science researchers, and art therapists, have also made connections to how early childhood art contributes to brainpower. Over my twenty years in the process, studio-based observations, I have observed these same connections to how children get to improve their brains by creating artwork!

5 brainpower areas:

  • Problem-solving
  • Fine motor development
  • Memory development
  • Spatial awareness
  • Stress regulation
fine motor development, art boosts children's brainpower

Let’s review these 5 areas of how early childhood art helps:

Problem-Solving

Art making is a great place for children to go through lots of problem-solving situations. They usually start with designing problems, deciding what materials and tools they need, how to construct their artworks, and what size to create their artworks. They then analyze their artworks to decide if they need to find a different way to get the results they desire. The artistic process is a great way for children to become problem-solvers. Creative activities are directly linked to problem-solving.

Fine Motor Development

Fine motor development is a physical attribute that advances a child’s growth. In addition, fine motor skills help with creating children’s art projects and in using art materials. By developing these muscles, children develop better dexterity with paintbrushes and crayons as well as constructing movements and putting together their crafts. (Science Art Method © 2021 Spramani Elaun)

Montessori art activities

Memory Development

When kids learn repeated movements, they’re reinforcing implicit memory; the actions are wired and become linked in their brain. Fortunately, that means they don’t have to consciously think about every minute action. They will see a paintbrush and instinctively know to pick it up, dip it into the palette or water, and start painting. The next time they engage in an art activity, their memory kicks in and their hand movements will come naturally. (Science Art Method © 2021 Spramani Elaun)

Regulate Stress

Most art activities offer multi-sensory engagement and can help kids relax and work calmly. Tactile art-making stimulates touch neural input, visual pathways communicate with both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. And, auditory and smell sensory systems also collect information all while entering an active multi-sensory learning state. (Science Art Method © 2021 Spramani Elaun).

Spatial Awareness

Visual arts are a significant way to improve spatial intelligence. Visual art creation relies on spatial understanding. Art-making teaches kids visualization. When children make art, they become aware of the spatial relationships among objects in the realm of their own experiences. As children learn through two-dimensional and three-dimensional art-making, their long-term memories create sight patterns stored in the mind known as “spatial memories.” (Science Art Method © 2021 Spramani Elaun).

Art Activities and Mediums to Start With

Now that you have a good idea of how art-making can boost brain power, here are the best types of art projects to start teaching. These types of art activities will help develop children’s fine motor control and the small muscles in their fingers and hands.

  • Drawing: crayons, color pencils, graphite pencil, oil pastels, etc.
  • Painting: watercolor paints, tempera paints, acrylic paints, watercolor crayons, watercolor pencils, etc.
  • Color Theory: primary color mixing, dropper color mixing, etc.
  • Clay Modeling: earth clay, non-harden plasticine clay, air-dry modeling clay, beeswax forming, etc.
  • Crafts: paper folding, nature and paper collage, mosaic arrangements, sewing basics, wool felting, string weaving, nature crafting, 3D constructing, etc.

All art supplies are available online in my Nature of Art for Kids online store.

To learn more about how art boosts children’s brainpower you can order my art teaching books here: BUY BOOKS

Get my free Materials Lists for Children’s Art Projects Below:

free download children's material lists for children's art activities

Early Childhood Materials List – PDF

Lower Elementary Materials List – PDF

Upper Elementary Materials List – PDF

Spramani ELaun
Spramani ELaun, Owner, Artist, Montessori-art & Nature of Art For Kids

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Montessori Fine Motor Art Activities

Montessori Fine Motor Art Activities

I’ve spent years observing how young students learn art, and in my experience I’ve seen how sensory art projects and art-making actions can help students achieve better control of their fine motor skills. In fact, I encourage you to look for Montessori fine motor art activities to do with your students in your classroom.

It’s important to understand how fine motor development plays a role in a child’s daily life, both inside and outside of school. They give kids the strength to press, push, pull, and squeeze so they can learn and be able to dress themselves, tie their own shoes, eat without assistance, and play outdoors safely. In the classroom, this translates to holding a pencil to write, using scissors safely, handling papers, opening lunch and supply boxes, and using art supplies (like glue) without a mess.

Montessori Fine Motor Art Activities for children

Increasingly, over the years, early childhood students are coming to my classes and workshops with very little, or even no, finger or hand-strength capabilities. Many Montessori teachers have shared with me that students entering their classrooms also seem to lack the capabilities of completing simple tasks that rely on fine motor skills.

Because these basic skills are lacking, it’s slowing down student progression in the classrooms and some teachers worry that students aren’t able to participate in independent art activities. Not only does that limit a student’s ability to learn and develop their art literacy, it increases the chance of mess or injury in the classroom—and both are major problems. 

Montessori Fine Motor Art Activities lessons

These issues can be remedied, on a large scale, if you give children the opportunities to make art. In fact, not providing kids with enough chances to do repetitive movements, especially in the lower grades, can delay their confidence to work independently and successfully progress within the school year. Make sure you’re designating plenty of time for your students to work on implicit memory functions—which means performing certain tasks without conscious awareness, while building strength.

Where to Start: Sensory Activities to Build Fine Motor Skills

Typically, when I teach my own classes or go into Montessori classrooms, I start my students out with clay modeling, paint brush stroking, sensory painting, and safety scissor activities. I’ve found that these types of activities, plus many others, can help students develop their skills quickly over a short period of time.

Montessori Fine Motor Art Activities, method and advice

You want to start your students out with very basic one- to two-step isolated movements. For instance, I’ll often introduce clay to a classroom and then we’ll work on kneading the clay and forming it into a sphere. After that, I’ll give them time to just sculpt simple creatures, botanicals, or anything else they desire—but only working with simple movements. Same thing with painting—I’ll teach kids one isolated movement like dipping a paintbrush into a palette then making a smooth brush stroke. I’ll give kids time for these movements over and over so that they build implicit memory and concentrate on that one moment.

One Step Further: Download My 10 Creative Art Movements Guide

Fortunately, there are some great Montessori fine motor art activities and movements that can adapted for early childhood, lower elementary, and upper elementary students. These types of art making activities will help students develop fine motor control and small muscles in their fingers and hands.

how to Montessori Fine Motor Art Activities

The guide includes 10 different types of movements that will help strengthen students’ hand-eye coordination and help refine their manual dexterity. Each movement can even be used to set up a simple, stress-free lesson; or you can make sure these movements are involved with any other art lesson you have planned.

To download your FREE guide, click here.

A Short Cut Just for You – Early Childhood Art Guide

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Early Childhood Art Guide

Visual Arts Teaching Guide
for 13 Months – 6 Years Old

This book includes:
✅ My proprietary art teaching method
✅ The proper and complete list of art materials
✅ A guide for staging and setting up a successful art environment
✅ Tips and art lesson ideas for early childhood
✅ A convenient three-ring binder presentation

Buy Guide Now!

All rights reserved © 2024, Nature of Art®

No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreign language without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.